Changlings
by Vashka
Summary: Life is good for Kaoru Kamiya. A great job. On track to finish college with honors. Her Changling form is only a modestly embarrassing animal. But the world is a dangerous place, and more powerful Changlings are going feral. Only the Hunters can stop them.
1. Chapter 1

Kaoru was generally a good girl. She obeyed the law. She paid her taxes on time. She never went five miles over the speed limit. She even volunteered at the local hospital, electing to spend her free time reading to sick kids than loaf around on her couch for another hour.

_Yet how do I always get myself into these situations?_She thought rhetorically as she viciously wiped the mixture of blood and sweat trickling from her brow. She sprinted over the bridge that connected Misao's dorm across the river to the rest of the campus. _The one and only time I break curfew. Figures._

That evening, she had been at Misao's place eating pizza and 'studying' for their big Calc midterm in a week, and both of them had lost track of time. Misao had offered to let her stay, but Kaoru had wanted to sleep in her own bed. It was a walk that she had made a hundred times. Safe, easy. At a brisk pace she could be in her dorm in twenty minutes.

Tonight was different. Tonight things were lurking in that darkness.

Stopping for a moment, back against the ivy-covered brick wall of the English department, Kaoru held her breath, straining to hear something, anything.

_Please tell me I lost it._

_Click-click-click-click_

Her heart gave a shudder and her eyes closed as a jolt of fear electrified her body. _Don't panic, Kaoru. You'll get out of this. You will._

She ran.

She ran from the English building to the deserted dining hall where she tested the doors and found them, unsurprisingly, locked. She quickly darted across the road, hoping that the doors to the Student Union were unlocked, but knowing in her heart that they were not.

After futile session of tugging at the doors of the Union with her considerable strength, Kaoru made a decision to sprint for the dorms and hope a security officer, a student breaking curfew, anyone, would be around to help her.

She was doing well until the toe of her blue sneaker snagged on a pothole in the road. With a pained grunt, she landed on the pavement, her hands and knees scraping, jeans tearing, picking up dirt, oil and other filth.

The pitter-patter of paws grew closer.

Not for the first time, Kaoru wished her _Changed_ form was a tad more lethal. _Raccoons are cute and sneaky, but useless in a straight-up Clan fight. _

_At least I'm not a Rooster,_ she thought, semi-hysterically. _A food item with absolutely no battle skills. _

The vicious bark behind her brought her off of her knees in a hurry.

_He's wearing me down,_ Kaoru thought frantically. _He's going to chase me until I can't run anymore, and then…_

Kaoru didn't want to think about that. The rogues, the barbarians who became more animal than human had been in the papers much more frequently the past few months. Maulings, rape, murder… Kaoru shuddered and picked up her pace, sides heaving, the muscles in her legs cramping fiercely.

_I'm spent._ Her lungs were burning, her legs shaking with exhaustion. _Time to make a stand while I still have some energy left. _Kaoru scanned the empty campus for a spot, any spot where the creature following her would not automatically have the advantage.

_There._ The alley by the bookstore. There she wouldn't be so exposed and her back might have a chance of being protected. And if she was lucky, there might be a two-by-four by the garbage dumpster she could use as a makeshift bokken. That might buy her enough time so she could calm down enough to transform and possibly escape. Maybe.

Haphazard plan set, Kaoru poured on her reserves, sprinting for the alley. Lungs blowing like bellows, she skidded to a halt in front of the dumpster and frantically searched for a two-by-four, a stick, a pipe, anything, that could be used as a weapon.

_Click-click-click-click_

_Time's up._

"Hey, ugly!" Kaoru shouted, voice hoarse and trembling. With the ease of long practice, she slipped into an alert karate stance, arms up, balanced on the balls of her feet. She took a few long steady breaths, calming nerves and centering her tired body.

Glowing eyes appeared first, stalking around the flickering pool of light created by a dim fluorescent bulb hanging over the green dumpster.

Kaoru lifted her chin and waited.

When the attack came, it was swift and brutal. A huge, black timber wolf leapt out of the shadows, his golden eyes mindless as he lunged for her throat. Kaoru smoothly sidestepped his attack. The wolf landed gracefully and eyeballed her with something like respect. Its lips pulled back from sharp yellow fangs in a snarl at her defiance.

Kaoru smiled.

The wolf attacked again, and again Kaoru dodged, this time adding a vicious roundhouse to the tail of her dive out of the way.

Lunge, kick. Attack, dodge.

Until Kaoru's toe snagged onto something and she lost her perfect balance.

The wolf took advantage of her momentary vulnerability. He pounced onto her back pinning her down with his massive weight. Suddenly, the air was filled with smoke.

_No!_ Kaoru struggled and bucked wildly, simultaneously trying to dislodge the shifter enough to escape and to summon the necessary calm for the _Change. _

The smoke settled, and Kaoru felt the form on top of her elongate, felt large hands run over her hair, her back, her waist. As they crept downwards, she gritted her teeth and fought off the spurts of panic eddying through her.

_I am a raccoon. I am a raccoon. I… am…_

"_Jineh!"_

Suddenly the weight was ripped off her, her body free once more. Rolling over, Kaoru took advantage of the miracle and sprang into a crouch. Wiping the matted blood, dirt and hair from her eyes, she tried to get a good look at her rescuer.

The wolf had already _Changed_ back into his animal form, but it was obvious that even though the wolf was vicious and huge, he was outclassed.

The stranger was small, almost delicate with long red hair. He could almost be taken for a woman but for his hard, muscled frame and the masculine jut of his jawline. As he attacked the wolf, he moved with such speed Kaoru's eyes strained to keep up with his movements.

It took awhile for Kaoru's brain to recover from the shock, but when she did she noticed that the stranger was using a _sword_ to fight the Changed wolf. Kaoru's brows rose nearly to her hairline. _Steel doesn't have any power against a Changeling._

A pained howl ripped through the air. Kaoru grinned. _Guess not._

Backing away slowly, hoping to escape the notice of the two combatants, Kaoru couldn't help but admire and fear the sheer athleticism of the man easily trouncing the creature that had defeated her so easily. _And he hasn't even Changed yet!_

Watching him move was like watching a cat- all effortless and boneless grace. She thought that was suiting because when his eyes turned in her direction they were as yellow as the image of the cat in her mind.

_Uh-oh_, Kaoru thought, butterflies erupting in her stomach. _Why do I get the feeling I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire?_

Notes: Wrote this years ago for RAvyn on LJ. Posted to Fanfiction at the urging of my friend kokoronagomu.


	2. The Hunter

Title: Changlings  
Author: Vashka  
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.  
Rating: PG-13  
Prompt: _Rurouni Kenshin_ ficlet, Kenshin/Kaoru, in my Changling 'Verse for Ravyn**€]**

000 

**Chapter 2: The Hunter**

000 

Kenshin, his face impassive and breath steady, flicked the blood and gore off of his blade. _Another monster down. Hundreds more to go._ He smiled turned grim as his amber eyes squinted at the bloody carnage, inspecting the half-turned creature for signs of life. The fur covered, gangly limbs twitched in their death-throes, but there was no rise and fall of the chest, and there was a clean cut severing the beast's muzzled, half-furred face with his neck. _Yup. Definitely decapitated. Mission accomplished._

Muscles still tense and twitchy with adrenalin, he swiftly turned to inspect the Vic, hoping against hope that she was still alive. Sheathing his sword, he willed his aura to soothing mode. He wanted her to be alive, he truly did, but he wouldn't get any information out of her if she was hysterical. 

The sky-rocketing murder rate, the horrific rapes, the increase in numbers of Changed who immersed themselves in the animal never came back, it made the job of Hunter incredibly messy these past few years. And exhausting. Especially when the boss is the pre-eminent workaholic of the age. 

Kenshin flipped his cell open to call the paramedics and the rest of his clean-up crew, but stopped mid-stride. 

He blinked in surprise. 

The victim was missing. 

"Shit," Kenshin hissed. There was a pool of blood where he had pulled the wolf off of her, but nothing else. No clothes or other signs of Change, nothing. 

_Dammit, we need to get her in for questioning, for healing. I didn't get a good look at her._ Mentally, he scrolled to his few memories of the victim. _Small, long dark hair, pale skin… No identifiers. Dammit, dammit, dammit! _

He knelt next to the small puddle of cool, rapidly congealing blood, quickly barking orders into his cell phone. On the cerebral, _human_ plane of his brain, he registered Sano's indignant squawk, but on the primitive level, that feral place where his Cat growled and paced, he was stalking. 

Instinctively, he knew that she couldn't have gotten far. The fight had not taken long, the wolf's crazed brain too drenched with blood and lust to stand any chance against him. He dipped his fingers into the blood, brought it to his nose for a long sniff. Closing his eyes, he allowed the Cat to remember her scent. 

_Salt, Spice, Jasmine and... Wood Oil?_ He shook off a surprised smile and took off at a sprint in the direction of the main campus dormitories. 

His nose wasn't as good as Saitoh's, but he could track for short distances. Her scent quickly led him to a dumpster on the other side of the sports complex, where he found a pair of jeans and a sweat-soaked, bloody, blue T-shirt saturated with her scent. Rifling through her pockets, he swore creatively. 

_Chapstick, some change and a hair band. No wallet. No ID. Wonderful. And on top of that, she Changed. _

Bringing the T-shirt to his face and inhaling deeply, he almost gagged on the overwhelming smell of garbage. Cursing her clever choice of location, he tried again to catch the scent of her animal form, but could not, as the scent of decomposing food was too strong on her clothing. Tossing the shirt back into the dumpster, he slowly walked the perimeter of 

There. The fresh scent of… musk mixed with blood. There weren't any other recent animal scents nearby, and the scent was similar enough that Kenshin took a gamble and followed it off into the night. It took him on a circuitous path- over tables, under rails and on the roof of a few dorms, and just as he was about to give up hope, the scent suddenly stopped in the square middle of the dormitory quad. 

He looked up into the tree. 

When he was in his feline form, he could see in the dark just as clearly as the daylight. However, even though he retained many aspects of his Changed form while he was human, his night vision only improved marginally. Quietly, so as not to alert her to his presence he reached into his black leather jacket for his high-powered LED flashlight. Squinting into the black, he could make out a small shape moving in the branches. Aiming his flashlight at the blob, he hoped that the past hour hadn't been an elaborate wild goose chase. 

The creature froze, eyes glowing madly in the sudden bright light. 

Kenshin could feel his lips curving up reflexively. A small raccoon, its deep brown eyes wary and intelligent stared at him unblinkingly. As Kenshin watched, amused despite himself, it tried to hide its body behind a large branch of the maple. 

"I know it's you. I want you to know that you are safe now." 

The raccoon did not move. 

"The creature that attacked you is dead. I'm with the Hunter's association, and we need to bring you into the station for questioning." 

The raccoon did, what Kenshin assumed, was its best, 'look I'm not a Changling at all, I'm just an animal,' impression. Nonchalantly, it scurried to the end of the branch and back and studiously ignored his presence. 

Kenshin laughed. "You still have your wallet in your mouth." 

The raccoon seemed surprised by this, and spat it out reflexively. It dropped to Kenshin's feet. Flipping it open, he looked at the ID – _Kaoru Kamiya_. He swallowed. _She's… really pretty._

He looked up to angry chittering. And found she had descended to a branch just above his head. Her dark eyes snapping, she balanced on the branch and held out her paws for her wallet. 

"Nope," Kenshin said happily, "this is mine until you come in for questioning." As she angrily snapped at his hand, he noticed several nasty scratches on her back and flanks, still oozing, almost hidden by her fur. "And you need your wounds looked after. With the amount of blood you lost, you'll probably need stitches at least, if not a few units of blood." 

The raccoon shrunk back in on itself, and Kenshin's heart ached a little at how scared and small it looked. He opened his arms wide. "Come on. We've got fresh clothes, showers and coffee. Will you trust me?" 

The raccoon looked at him steadily for a long while, not moving. Just when he thought he would need to send for backup, her hindquarters bunched and she leapt into his open arms. 

He looked at the shivering female in his arms and smiled as he walked to his car. "I'll keep you safe, don't worry."

000

Notes: Wrote this years ago for Ravyn on LJ. Posted to Fanfiction at the urging of my friend kokoronagomu.


End file.
